E 



■ ■ > • ■ 



»j. •■ ,' . / -or .... 



A^ ADDRESS 




TO THE 



COLORED PEOPLE 



OF 1 GEORGIA, 



BY ELIAS YULEE, 

A. Member of th.e Bar. 



SAVANNAH: 

REPUBLICAN" JOB OFFICE. 

1868. 




A.*3ST ADDEE8R 




OF GEORGIA, 




SAVANNAH: 

•• REPUBLICAN' 1 JOB OFFICE. 

1868. 



P R E F A C E . 



Tliis address, though made to the colored people of Georgia, is 
nevertheless in tended for general reading. It furnishes a course 
of facts, that may he useful in the hands of intelligent whites, to 
present to the colored people in their immediate vicinity. We 
trust, that they will be found useful in disabusing the minds of 
misguided men among them. The terms North and South arc 
used frequently, by which we wish it distinctly understood, that 
we mean by these terms only the principles upheld by the leaders 
of the parties. The mass of the people of the North aie no doubt 
honest in their intentions, but they are under a delusion, brought 
on by designing men. A man, whether from the North or South, 
from Europe, Africa, or Asia, is to us a man, according to his 
principles. We hail alike with hearty good will, the Northern or 
the Southern man, whose principles lead him to the maintenance 
of free institutions, and who is opposed to Europeanizing our 
country, preferring the Constitutional rights of the States to cen- 
tralization. We trust these explanations will defend us, from ap- 
pearing so narrow minded and contracted, as the judging of a 
man by his birthplace. Nowhere, are there found men more true 
to the principles of Demorcratic rule, than in New England, but 
they are unfortunately in the minority as }~et. We have had, never- 
theless, in the discussion of our subjects, to use the terms Northern, 
Souther/!, Yankee and New England, as generic names for certain 
principles in the ascendancy in those localities. With us, princi- 
ples make men, and not men or their birthplaces their principles. 



Savannah, October 10th, 1868. 



AN ADDRESS. 



To the Colored People of the South. 

M y friends (and I am not backward in calling; you so, seeing that 
from my earliest cliildhood, I have been indebted to many of you 
for numerous services), I am profoundly interested in your future 
prospects. Impressed with this interest in your welfare, I feel 
called upon to use, what influence my feeble efforts may contribute 
to your progress and happiness. You are in danger, and it be- 
hooves you to reflect. You have now no human protectors, bound 
by their interest to regard your safety. 

Emancipation has made you your own guardians, and you are 
cast amongst the most active race of men, (the Anglo-Saxons of 
America, of the North and the South), to work out your fate, for 
good or evil. It is now a question you have to solve, whether 
like the Indians, you shall die out and leave no trace behind, or 
whether you shall become an element of civilized society. You 
have active enemies, who desire your annihilation, or your remo- 
val to some other lands. You have also some mistaken friends, 
who are your worst enemies (the old Abolitionists), because they 
are persuading you to take a position you cannot maintain, namely, 
the assertion of your independence and equality with white men 
in the race for power and progress. God has endowed various 
races with various powers and attributes, he has not made you to 
be the pioneers in civilization, but you may follow in its track and 
partake of its blessings. These, your friends, who do not know 
you, but live at the North, apart from you, have formed a theory 
of what they consider manhood rights, and they wish, regardless 
of all fitness or propriety, to apply their theory to all men. Thus 
they would argue — God made an ox, he also made a horse, why 
should not an ox be as swift of foot as a horse, why should they 
not be yoked together. You know the consequence that would 
follow, the horse being so much the swifter, would drag the ox to 
death, and one or the other, or both would suffer. So with you 
and the white race. Experience teaches you that in matters of intel- 
lectual progress, you are not the equals of the white race. To put 
you to a contest with him for the superiority, or even equality, 
you would fail, and make trouble for all concerned. The point I 
wish to arrive at, is to appeal to your consciousness of facts, and to 
pursuacle you to act in conformity w r ith them. 

I will therefore make a few short remarks under these follow- 
ing heads. 

First. — Whence were you ? 

Second. — What were you in your natal homes of Africa ? 
Third. — Who brought you here and how long ago ? 



8 



AN ADDEESS TO THE 



Fifth. — Whence was your emancipation, from the accidents of 
war or from design ? 

Sixth. — What is your present position ? 

Seventh. — What is civilization, and what its inexorable decrees ? 
Eighth. — What, are your present duties in view of the past and 
the future ? 

Ninth. — Who are they, who are urging on you a departure from 
your life-long course as waiters on Providence ? 

Tenth. — The dangers you are in by attempting to mould your 
future by force, instead of moving on as heretofore, under obedienee 
and tutelage to those who have always had you in charge. 

1 shall proceed to illustrate these heads in their order. 



NUMBEE II. 

WHENCE WERE YOU ? 

About two hundred and fifty years ago, the Europeans, feeling 
the want of labor to cultivate the lands of this new country, had 
their attention turned to Africa. There they discovered that your 
ancestors were living rude lives, ignorant and barbarous, and were 
engaged in constant Avars, mailing prisoners of each, other, who, 
when taken, were either barbarously murdered or kept as slaves 
to the chiefs who took them. Travelers who have visited that 
country, state that on the death of a chief thousands of slaves arc 
killed to keep him company in death and futurity ; also, that it is 
the custom of the chiefs to ornament their houses with the skulls 
of those they have slain, so that the picket fences about their 
houses are stuck full of skulls. As to their religion, it was of the 
most horrid nature ; they worshipped not only images, but ani- 
mals of various kinds, the shark among others, to which animal 
they sacrificed their infant children annually. 

Finding the people of Africa of this character, it was argued by 
the kings and princes of Europe, that by buying them from their 
chiefs, and bringing them away from such a barbarous country, 
they would be doing them a great service. The kings of Europe, 
who then owned this country, therefore permitted their subjects — 
the English, Spaniards, Portuguese, French and Dutch merchants 
and captains, to buy your ancestors in Africa, and bring them to 
this country and the West India Islands. 

Of course those who engaged in this traffic, did not do it from 
Christian love towards you, but for gain. But what I mean to say 
is, that the Christian Church in Europe, and the kings of Europe, 
were led to permit the traffic on account of what they considered 
benevolent motives, namely, the taking your ancestors from slavery 
in Africa, among barbarous chiefs, and bringing them to slavery 
in America, among a Christian people. If they had left them in 
Africa, they would still have been slaves, and liable to be killed 
by their savage masters, but brought here, though slaves, they 



COLOEED PEOPLE OF GEORGIA. 



would bo under more humane masters. What has been the result? 
X"our present condition is the answer. Compare yourselves with 
the native African, and tell whether yon arc not infinitely im- 
proved. Africa is the same to-day as it was then. Its people 
have not advanced, and perhaps never will advance, till the white 
people carry civilization there, either by commerce or force of 
arms, or by both. Do not understand me to claim for the white 
people any extraordinary motives of love of neighbor, or charity 
in their doings. Those who brought you here were governed by 
self alone. They wanted your labor or they would not havo 
brought you from Africa. So if Africa is to be benefitted by 
having civilization carried there, it will be only when the white 
people can make something by it. 

God,Miowever, uses man's selfish purposes to carry out His pro- 
vidences, and I suppose God permitted you to be brought here to 
do you good, as it has so turned out. 

Many of you have seen Africans just from their native land. 
We have many of them now among us, though improved by resi- 
dence here. What did they know ? Nothing ! while you are 
masons, bricklayers, carpenters, shoemakers, wheelwrights, ship 
carpenters and agriculturists. Besides this, thousands of you have 
become Christians, which is more than all earthly greatness and 
possessions. 

All this, slavery in America has done for you, while slavery in 
Africa would have left you still the barbarian, just as rude and 
ignorant as those natives are, whom you have seen from there. 

Sir Samuel White Baker, the African explorer, who established 
the fact of the sources of the Nile, after much experience in Nc- 
groland) thus sums up his opinion of African character : 

" I wish the black sympathizers in England could see Africa's 
inmost heart as I do, much of their sympathy would subside. 
Human nature viewed in its crude state, as pictured amongst 
African savages, is quite on a level with that of the brute, and not 
to be compared with the noble character of the dog. There is 
neither gratitude, pity, love, nor self-denial; no idea of duty; no 
religion ; but covetousness, ingratitude, selfishness and cruelty. 
All are thieves; idle, envious and ready to plunder, and enslave 
their weaker neighbors. 5 ' — Page 164 of "The Albert Nyanza Great 
Basin of the Nile" Published in 18Gb" in London, by Sir Samuel 
White Baker. 

These opinions and experiences are corroborated by every other 
traveler and explorer in Africa. How, then, can you believe what 
silly people tell you, that slavery in America has reduced you to 
ignorance ? Has it not rather raised you to a partial civilization ? 
Are you not better in the scale of being than your African forefath- 
ers ? Whether you are to continue progressing, will depend entirely 
on the use you make of your liberty. 

History tells you, how and by what means you were enslaved 
and brought to America. The South in the begining opposed 
slavery. Our people looked with alarm at the introduction of the 
negro among us, and it was not till we had welded you into our 



8 



AN ADDRESS TO THE 



soci.nl fabric, that we settled down into the toleration of the sys- 
tem, under which we lately lived. Of course, we then resisted the 
uprooting that which had taken root. Our interests became iden- 
tified with that state of society, and like all men we desired per- 
manence. 

The revolution, in our institutions now made and accomplished, 
we are satisfied to begin to re-organize society on the new basis of 
free labor, and we desire to take you by the hand and continue 
your civilization as freedmen, if ycu will let us. 

I present you an extract from the original Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, written by Thomas Jefferson, a Southern man, who yen 
will see condemned negro slavery, even before the formation of our 
federal relations. In the fac simile of the draft of the Declaration 
of Independence by Thomas Jefferson is the following paragraph. 

"He (the King of England) has waged civil war against human 
nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty, in 
the persons of a distant people, who never offended him ; captiva- 
ting and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to 
incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This pira- 
ical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of 
the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a 
market where MEN should be bought and sold, he prostituted his 
negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or 
to restrain this execrable commerce ; and that this assemblage of 
horrors might want no fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting 
those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that 
liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people 
upon whom he also obtruded them, thus paying off former crimes, 
committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which 
he urges them to commit against the lives of another." — Sec Jcf- 
fcrs's Correspondence. 

Now let it be remembered, that this was written by a Southern 
man, condeming the introduction of negro slaves into the United 
States. All the Southern men of that day opposed negro slavery. 
Why I ask, was this paragraph stricken out from the original 
draft of the Declaration of Independence. 

The striking out was done by the New Englanders, who were 
making money by the slave trade, and winced at its condemnation 
in such forcible terms. New England is well named as the off 
shoot of Old England^ the same nation of traders, whose politics 
and statesmanship are bounded by the accumulation of pelf. 

They, these traders, introduced you among us, and as soon as 
they had an object to serve, they pay off the crime of piracy and 
slave dealing, "committed against the liberties of one people, with 
crimes which they urge you to commit against the lives of an- 
other." 

This authentic scrap of history suffices to show you conclusively, 
that the South had nothing to do with bringing you from Africa, 
but has been your best and ernly true friend, under whom you have 
increased and improved. 



COLORED PEOPLE OE GEORGIA. 
NUMBER III. 



In my last number I endeavored briefly to answer the question — 
Whence were you ? What were you in your natural homes of 
Africa ? Who brought you here, and how long ago ? 

I will now review the question — Who have liad charge of you 
since first brought here, and have advanced you to your present 
state of progress ? 

The emissaries of the North and misguided colored men, who 
are ambitious to use you for their own elevation, have endeavored 
to sow the seeds of discord between you and your old masters. 
They tell you that the Southern people stole you from Africa ; that 
they have been wrongfully holding you as slaves ; that they treated 
you cruelly ; that they failed to educate you ; that they denied you 
progress, and the common rights of human beings ; that all the 
wealth and possessions of the South are clue to you ; that you owe 
your old masters a debt of hate, and that you can never hope for 
anything from them but continued oppression and prejudice ; and, 
finally, that the Northern people are your friends, with whom you 
should join to put down your old masters. 

These are the teachings of the parties, who are arraying you 
into a black man's party against the Southern whites. 

Let us examine each of these propositions. Were you stolen 
from Africa ? I say, no ■ You were bought either from the chiefs 
who owned you, or, in some instances, from your own parents. 
The traffic in slaves in Africa is common there to this day, as re- 
cent travelers say that trade is carried on principally in slaves, so 
that instead of saying a thing is worth so many dollars, they say 
it is worth so many slaves. As far as history goes, slavery has 
been the rule in Africa. Your ancestors were slaves in their na- 
tive land ; were bought as slaves by those white men who went 
there to buy you, and were again sold as slaves to the Southern 
planters who have held you as such ever since, up to a few years 
ago. 

So you see that it is false that you were stolen — false that the 
Southern people went to Africa to get you — because you were 
brought from Africa by the Europeans and the Yankees, \wlw were 
the things, if you were stolen at all), and that you came into the pos- 
session of your Southern masters by purchase. They paid the 
Yankees for you, who took that money and invested it in manu- 
factures, by which they have got rich, very rich. 

The above facts disprove the charge, that the South lias been 
wrongfully holding you 

Now as to the charge that they treated you cruelly. You know 
whether this is true or not. Some of you will say —yes, and others 
no. Those who say yes, will tell of being flogged, of being punish- 
ed in various ways. If you examine into the lives of most of these 
persons you will find that freedom has not stopped their punish- 
ments. As they then complained of the" cruelty of their masters, 



10 



AN ADDKESS TO THE 



they now complain of the cruelty of the law, which puts them in 
chain gangs, in prisons, in penitentiaries, or on the gallows. The 
men who were punished as slaves are now punished as freedmen. 
The cruelties they complained of as from their masters, they now 
complain of as being inflicted by the law. Does not this prove 
that their punishment was not from cruelty, but from necessity to 
preserve good order. Of course, there were some persons who 
were unjustly punished, some who had cruel and bad masters, but 
this injustice is not peculiar to slavery ; it is practised all over the 
world — among Yankees and Europeans. IN" ay, who was treated 
so unjustly as our Good Father in Heaven, who, when he came to 
bless mankind, was cruelly crucified, and is being daily crucified 
all over the world by those who call themselves Christians. 

But thousands and thousands of former slaves say, that from 
their youth up to their emancipation, they were treated kindly and 
humanely by their former owners. 

The charge of cruelty is also disproved from the fact, which can- 
not be gainsayed, that during slavery the black people increased 
astonishingly, while now that they are free, they are decreasing. 
Look at the present immorality of the young black people of both 
sexes ; see how they are rushing to destruction. Idle and vagrant, 
they are preparing an early grave, into which they will sink, cov- 
ered with the leprosy of crime. 

Was it cruel on the part of their old masters to surround them 
with restraints, and compel them to a useful compliance with or- 
derly habits ? 

Your own good sense (I mean those of you who have learned 
something from the teachings of your masters) must admit, that it 
cannot be called cruelty to compel ignorant people to obey the 
laws of order, just as we tutor, punish and compel children to do 
what is right. 

As to the charges made by the Yankees, that your masters failed 
to educate you. 3-011 might ask the Yankees why they did not edu- 
cate you themselves, when they brought you from Africa, instead 
of selling you to the South ? Your masters did educate you as 
agriculturists, mechanics and in morals. They also provided re- 
ligious teachers for you. It is true they did not teach you read- 
ing, writing, etc., but the reason is plain — they had to make your 
labor useful, and. if your time had been taken up with schools, it 
would have interfered with, the work they bought you to perform. 
If you go to the North or to Europe, you will find that when a 
man employs a servant or laborer, he does not trouble himself with 
his education, but gets all the work out of him that he can. Iam 
not defending this mode of proceeding, but I say that it is human 
nature all over the world, to neglect too much our duty towards 
our fellow beings. 

Your old masters were no worse than other people in this re- 
spect. As to the statement that all the wealth and possessions in 
the South are due to negro labor, it is mere nonsense. Where and 
when did the negro race ever build a city, a church, a fine house, 
a railroad, a steamboat, a plantation for rice, cotton or sugar. 



COLORED PEOPLE OF GEORGIA. 



11 



Thoy do not do it in Africa, tliey do not do it any whoro, but as 
laborers under the direction cf the whites, who have intelligence 
and capital. 

As 'well aiay the Irifeh laborer claim New York city, because by 
his labor all the stores and residences there were constructed. 

Or claim our railroads because they labored on them with their 
shovels and wheelbarrows. 

Your masters paid their money for you to the Yankees, and of 
course put you to work, taught you to bo useful, and in the mean- 
time cared for you as your protectors and friends. The work you 
did they paid for by their care of you from infancy to age, and you 
are as well off to-day as arc the white laborers of Europe, who 
have to depend on the daily work of their hands for a daily living. 

Another thing told you is, that the people of the South want to 
make you slaves again. 

This is also false. If you ivere to offer yourselves as slaves they 
iconic! not take you back. They find free labor clieapcr and not so 
troublesome. Slavery was more hurtful to the whites than the 
blacks, and no one wants it back. 



NUMBEB IV. 

Whence was your Emancipation, From tee Accidents of war, or 

from desigx ? 

In considering this question, it will be necessary to inform you 
of the state of parties from the first formation of the Government, 
eighty years ago. From the very first, there was a contest be- 
tween the North and the South for control of the Government. 
Slavery had not anthing to do with it, because nearly all the States 
were slave States. But the North, (Massachusetts in particular) 
wanted advantages in commerce. Then came the interests of the 
manufacturers, who asked for high tariffs, to protect their manu- 
factures. The meaning of a tariff is, a tax on all goods manufac- 
tured out of the United States, so that a yard of calico made in 
England, should pay so much tax when brought into this country. 
This made it possible for the North to make calicoes, &c, which 
they could not do, if there was no tax on the foreign calico. But 
it made the calico, and other goods the South used, cost higher 
than if there was no tariff. The tariff helped the North and hurt 
the South, your country. I say your country, because whatever 
hurt the South, hurt you, for it made the planter, your master, 
poorer, and made you poorer too. Every yard of goods used by 
you, your wives, or your children, had to pay this tax to help the 
Yankee to get richer. 

Another cause of quarrel between the sections, was, the lands or 
territories, belonging to the United States. The South wanted the 
privilege of going into them, and taking their slaves with them. 
The North said they should not. This was also a question in which 



AN ADDRESS $0 THE 



you were interested, because if you could have been taken there* 
you would have had a larger country to live and prosper in. Now 
the Northern people, and the Irish and the Germans, have taken 
all that country, and they make laws to keep you out of them to 
this day, so that you are not free to go in all of them, and if you 
were permitted to go, you would have no welcome hands to re- 
ceive you. The people do not want 3-011 there. Here you are wel- 
come. 

The quarrel went on for eighty years, during which, the ques- 
tion of Abolitionism was raised, not because as a party they loved 
you, but because they hated the South on account of all this con- 
tention, At last the Sonth decided to leave such an unpleasant 
contest, and in 1861, (seven years ago) declared themselves out of 
the Union. Then came war, not for the abolition of slaves, but to 
make the South stay in the Union. Finding the South stronger 
than they expected, they tried to weaken her by emancipating their 
slaves, and taking them into their armies. These are facts that 
you can learn any day by enquiry. You have therefore no thanks 
to give the Yankees for your emancipation. They were forced to 
it, so as to conquer the South, your country. They now come to 
you, hypocritically calling themselves your friends, who went to 
war to emancipate you, and ask you to help them to continue the 
war, against the interests of your oicn South, and against your old 
friends, who raised you and taught you all you know. 

The same contest is now going on against us, that went on be- 
fore the war. The North wants to get richer and richer, and make 
the South poorer and poorer, by the use of tariffs or taxes, and an 
unjust discrimination against our interests. That is the reason they 
want you to have votes, that you may send their friends to Con- 
gress, the enemies of your old mother Georgia. They think you 
are ignorant, and can be led any where, and made to do anytthing 
a Yankee tells you. 

You owe your emancipation, through the accidents of war, to 
Providence alone, and happy for the South if they had given you 
freedom long ago, for slavery has been a curse to the country, and 
kept it from prospering. Because — whether a slave was idle or 
criminal, he still had to be supported ; but now he is free, if he 
does not work, he must starve ; and if he is criminal, the law 
takes him and makes him work. Slavery was a very expensive 
institution, and the South is glad to get rid of it. Our present 
duty should be to take you by the hand, and help you to become 
useful citizens, happy in yourselves, and making other people 
happy. This the Southern man alone can and will do, because it 
is to his interest, first to have you useful to yourselves and others ; 
and, secondly, he has more feeling, friendship and regard for you^ 
because you have been born in his house, and brought up among 
us. We know you better than others, and appreciate your good, 
and have more forbearance towards your bad qualities than stran- 
gers can or will have. 

Yankees would never tolerate Szmbo and his easy, indolent 
habits of getting along, as do the more tolerant and less exacting 
Southern man. 



COLORED PEOPLE OF GEORGIA. 1$ 

That you may judge how the best of your friends — Abraham 
Lincoln — regarded you, I will give you some extracts Prom his 
speeches of L858, ten years ago. Ho said: 

"I have said that I do not understand the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence to mean that all men are created equal in all respects, 
certainly the negro is not our equal in color, perhaps not in many 
other respects. I did not, at any time, say L was in favor of negro 
suffrage. I am not in favor of negro citizenship." 

Again, in the same debate with Douglas, in Illinois. lie said: 

" I am not, and never have been, in favor of making voters of 
negroes. * * There is a physical difference between 

the black and the white races, which I believe will ever forbid the 
two races living Together on terms of social and political equality." 

In June, 1862, there was a deputation of negroes wdio waited 
on him, while he was President during the war. He then said to 
them : 

u Why should not the people of your race be colonized ? Why 
should they not leave this country? You and we are a different 
race. We have between us a broader difference than exists be- 
tween almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong, 
I need not discuss ; but this physical difference is a great disad- 
vantage to us both, as I think your race suffers greatly by living 
with us, while ours suffers by your presence. In a word, we suffer 
on each side. If this is admitted, it shows a reason why w^e should 
be separated." " But even when you cease to 

be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality 
with the white race." * * " Go wdiere you are 

treated best," (meaning in the North), "and the ban is still upon 
you. I do not propose to discuss this, but to present it as a fact 
with which we have to deal. I cannot alter it if I would. It is a 
fact about which we oil think and feel alike. We look to our con- 
dition owing to the existence of the races on this continent." 

I might quote a number of Northern great men — W. H. Sew- 
ard, Secretary of State; Stephen A. Douglas, Daniel \Vebster, 
John Adams, John Quincy Adams, all to show that the Northern 
people, as a whole, do not desire your presence in the United 
States, and care nothing for you, hence they would not have gone 
to war to free you ; but war once commenced, your emancipation 
followed as one mode of conquering the South. 

This was the act of God, who may have done it, either for yonr 
destruction or your further advance. Time alone can tell, for who 
can look into the secret counsels of the Most High and His eternal 
purposes. God moves in a mysterious way, and His path no one 
can see, until He has past by us. He brought the children of 
Israel out of Egypt, but not one of that people lived to get to the 
promised land of Canaan. They wandered for forty years in the 
wilderness, and there they all perished. Their posterity alone en- 
tered Canaan, and after that, the whole of them were dispersed, 
wanderers over the wide world, exiles from their own land, perse- 
cuted of all nations. Now, many of you delight and plume your- 
selves on your emancipation, and compare it to that of the chil- 



AN ADDRESS TO THE 



clren of Israel from Egypt. You call some one (Lincoln or John- 
son) your Moses. Remember, if you are to be as the children of 
Israel, you have a wilderness to travel through, before you get to 
Canaan, and if you do not obey the commandments of God, you 
are to be scattered, exiled and persecuted. 

I mention this to show you the folly of those who claim for you 
the peculiar favor of heaven. For aught we know, your emanci- 
pation may be the precursor of your annihilation, and this is sure 
to be the case if you cannot be made useful to the progress of civ- 
ilization, which progress is the great end God has in view for man- 
kind. 

Do not plume yourselves with the idea of special grace in your 
favor. Like all men, you will be judged by your works alone as 
were the Jews. 

Man proposes, but God disposes. You and your allies may 
flatter yourselves, under the delusions of a fool's paradise, but who 
can tell the end till it comes ? 



NUMBER Y. 

What is Civilization, and What its Inexorable Deceees ? 

This question is a serious one, and requires to be seriously pon- 
dered. Civilization maybe compared to a chariot, propelled by an 
irresistible power, that crushes out of existence all those who ob- 
struct its onward career. Its advent is as the day of judgment to 
every man and every nation. The Indians encountered it and 
failed to stand before it. The Malays, the Hawaians and other 
tribes and people have been judged by it, and they preferred dark- 
ness to its light, and they are fading away before it. It is a 1 aw 
of civilization to [remove from its path whoever cannot be made 
useful to its progress. The idle, the vicious, the libertine and the 
profligate die and leave no memorial behind them. Civilization, 
that opens a path ox safety and prosperity to its friends, envelopes 
its enemies in the waves of destruction. When it visits the savage, 
it is to judge him either to life or to death. 

The black or negro race is the only one of the savage tribes 
that has stood the test and has increased in numbers within the 
charmed circle of civilization. While the Indians have faded 
away the blacks have largely increased. Why is this ? It is be- 
cause they have allowed themselves to be made useful to its life. 
The blacks have been willing to labor ; the Indians would not. 
The blacks raised cotton, corn, sugar; they were willing to come 
under the rule and mastership of the civilized white man, and be- 
come a useful part of the social fabric of America. This he was 
enabled to do, because his nature is different from that of the In- 
dians. In the first place, he is tractable, the Indian intractable, 
Next, he is conscious of his ignorance and dependence, while the 
Indian is haughty, proud, and independent. The negro accepted 



COLORED PEOPLE OF GEOEGIA. 



16 



the band of tlio white man extended to him, and became a laborer 
in fields of productive industry ; the Indian spurned all labor, but 
that of the hunter. 

In fine, the negro was obedient to an intelligent master ; the In- 
dian rejected all mastership. The wholo secret of the incrcaso of 
the negro race and i(s partial civilization, is due to tho willingness 
of tho negro to be led by his superiors in knowledge, and to bo 
made useful. 

His fate in the future will depend entirely on his willingness to 
continue, as a freeman, under the same pupilage and guidance that 
led him along when a slave. If ho sets up for himself, and at- 
tempts to introduce a new Africa, in the South, liis days are num- 
bered, and civilization will sweep him out of its track. The raco 
can only live in, by, and through the white race, which is, in the 
hands of Providence, the instrument for the introduction and pro- 
gress of civilization. If you ask how do I know this, I will an- 
swer, I know it, because only among the whites does civilization 
exist ; that Christendom alone, shows that living, omnipotent 
power that is moulding mankind into a new world of thoughts and 
acts, which shall change the face of the earth. Like earth quako 
shocks and phenomena, it sinks and elevates, devastates and re- 
creates. 

It is the work of God on earth, and only those who are for it, 
and willing to welcome his work, can or will stand before it. 

Even among civilized nations, there are those which are more, 
and others less civilized. These different degrees of civilization 
Avar on each other, and tho more advanced always prevails. Tho 
Lord said he came to bring a sword into the world, and truly that 
sword has been at work since his coming. His sword is truth, 
and civilization advances that truth. You can no more stand be- 
fore it than prevail against God. Like the Indian, you may resist, 
you may murder, you may destroy, but you must at last succumb 
to those who have in their keeping the orijiamme of civilization. 
It is always advancing from ago to age. 

My good friends, my heart warms towards you, because there is 
so much in you that shows humility and affection. I want to see 
all your good qualities preserved and strengthened, and therefore 
I address you, that I may possess you with the truth. 

You aro not intellectual as are the whites, but you receive hum- 
bly all that commends itself to your perception. The Lord says, 
in his gospel, we must be servants of all. You have served wil- 
lingly as slaves, and made the best of your opportunities — never 
complaining, always cheerful. 

Y r ou did not raise a hand to secure your freedom, but accepted 
it as tho act of Providence. You have not used your freedom in- 
solently, except when led astray by wicked men, who have striven 
to innoculate you with the virus of self-assertion and self-depend- 
ence. You are willing to look to God and tho persons ho has made 
your guides. These bad men seek to make you abandon the teach, 
ings of heaven, and strive as white men strive, in the pride of 
their own intelligence. Such is not your peculiar characteristic. 



16 



AN ADDRESS TO THE 



Tlie "white man receives by his understanding, and fights for the 
promptings and teachings of what his reason dictates. You, on 
the contrary, receive by heariny, and not by seeing, and adapt your- 
selves to what you hear. The whites all over the world, have been 
constantly killing, and contending for certain principles, either in 
religion or politics. The blacks have never yet taken up arms for 
the assertion of any princip'e. All the lighting they have ever 
done has been either at the dictation of others in this country — 
whilst in their own, they fight for revenge, plunder or robbery. 

What is civilization? I will endeavor to state it plainly. Man 
has two kinds of sight ; one is the common one, received 
through the eye of the body, and constitutes one of the senses by 
which he views all things external to him. The other sight is that 
of the mind's eye, which sees tilings above and within him. By 
this last mode of sight he perceives principles; he also, by the 
same sight, invents means for perfecting a life of happiness and 
comfort, in accordance with those principles. 

He adapts nature to his wants. He learns the sciences, he in- 
stitutes governments, builds works of beauty, becomes a poet, a 
painter, sculptor, and composes music descriptive of the affections. 
All this is done by the elevation of man's internal sight into the 
regions within and above external nature. 

This he can do though lie may be, at will, a wicked man. To do 
all these thing is called civilization, and the white race is peculiar 
for the capacity of thus lifting the mind's eye and seeing the various 
forms of truth and beauty in religion, science and art. Why has 
not Africa a city like Paris, London or New York ? Why has it 
no cathedrals, palaces, works of art, electric telegraphs, astrono- 
mical observatories, railroads, steam works, photographic gal- 
leries, dictionaries, written languages, etc ? Africa is as old as 
Europe, why has it not developed civilizing institutions ? They had 
the same Sun above them, the same external nature around them, 
but they had not the same capacity of internal or mental sight. 
They could not lift the mind's eye above, beyond, and within na- 
ture ; and reason out the creations of art and science. God did not 
give them this faculty, but instead of it, he gave the willingness to 
learn of the white man, to imitate his life, and to be willing to give 
his ear to listen to the teachings oi civilization. You can be edu- 
cated, and taught all the white man discovers or invents, but you 
cannot discover or invent for yourselves. You have the willing 
ear but not the seeing eye. 

It appears as though God had made the white race to be the 
eye of the world of mankind, and all the other races to be benefit- 
ted by their discoveries, if they should be found willing to receive 
them. By this I do not mean that the white race is, morally, or 
spiritually speaking, better than any other. They certainly have 
more advantages, but whether they use them for their eternal wel- 
fare, is a matter for God alone to judge. We know thi.-\ that the 
white race has formed Governments for the protection of property 
and life, they have taught moral aud religious obligations, they 
profess to" believe in what they teach ; and yet, in many ways we can 



COLORED PJSOPLE OF GEORGIA. 



17 



detect, that when tried, some are found, in reality and internally, 
no better than the worst of savages. 

Let a shipwreck occur, and the bonds and restraints of a lawful 
command be severed, Ave then too often find men breaking- 
loose like demons, plundering and doing violence to the unfortu- 
nates of the wreck. Let an earthquake devastate a city, and im- 
mediately hordes of plunderers and cutthroats, in the midst of this 
display of an irresistible power, (and when if ever man should 
stand appalled") rush among the ruins, to rob the sufferers and de- 
prive them of what the dread convulsion may have spared. 

If we go to our most favored cities, we see plainly, that civiliza- 
tion is only a gilded covering of the dreadful human will, which 
may b© as depraved in civilized Christendom as in the wilds of 
Africa, civilization is not therefore religion, it is but the handmaid 
of religion, enabling men to be better if they will. I suppose that 
Africa, China, the Mahommedans and all others, have as many peo- 
ple among them, who at heart are merciful, kind and benevolent, 
as the Christian nations have. That man, who when all restraints 
of reputation and the law are removed, has a disposition to do to 
others, as he would have others do to him, that man alone is re- 
ligiously right at heart and right with God, whether lie be Pagan 
or Christian, you, my black friends, may be as good as your 
white fellow beings in this particular, but you aro not their equals 
in what is called civilization. When we die, we shall not be judged 
by the amount of civilization we have, but by the use Ave have 
made of it; and by the heart, that lies behind all the glitter of 
worldly wisdom, and worldly acquisition. 

And yet civilazation is of God, and to do Gcd's work, and the 
people, Avho obstruct it, will be swept away. Because God uses 
civilization to force men on to trials, temptations, and combats, 
that in the struggle, truth may be born by which mankind may 
be made wiser and better. 

It may take you some time to comprehend this, but you may 
comprehend it, if you will try, and ponder it Avell. 



NUMBER VI. 

What is Youe Present Condition ? 

From slavery you in a moment became free. So sudden Avas 
the change that you Avere beAvildercd by it, and kneAv not how to 
regard your oavu position, ^ome of you Avere unA\ 7 iiling to leave 
your old masters. Some left their old homes in a hurry, to try 
how it felt to be free from the accustomed restraints. They wan- 
dered about, making their Avay to the toAvns and cities, where 
thousands died of small pox and other diseases. Others sought 
Avork, but A\dien found, were not willing to clo it. The steady and 
Avise among you, either remained with their old masters or estab- 
lished themselves in some useful mode of life. The vicious por- 
C 



AN ADDRESS TO THE 



tion betook tlieni selves to idle habits, thefts and every unlawful 
mode of life. 

On the whole, however, any one who is disposed to be candid, 
must admit that the black people behaved with wonderful propri- 
ety, considering the great and sudden change in their condition, 
from the restraints of slavery to an entire absence of all restraint. 

Your moderation on that occasion was a fitting sequence to your 
exemplary fidelity during the war. On both occasions ycu reilect- 
ed credit on yourselves, and on your former owners and guides. 
Had they been cruel and hard masters, as reported and believed, 
you would have rebelled against, instead of supporting them 
throughout the war : and would, after emancipation, have been 
vindictive and unruly. 

But you were neither rebellious during the war, nor vindictive 
after it, thus demonstrating that you respected and esteemed your 
old masters, and were yourselves well disposed people. 

Such was the state of good feeling existing, that had no further 
action been taken by the Northern enemies of the South, the so- 
cial position of the races would have been soon established on a 
practical basis of co-operative interests. 

The black people, knowing their own natural deficiencies in in- 
tellect, would have chosen to follow the leadings of the good and 
wise of the white race. They would have chosen their friends 
from among the most humane of the whites, and have followed 
their advice. Equal rights before the law, were accorded you as 
citizens of Georgia, and, as freedmen, your rights would have 
been respected. In a short time, Georgia would have been more 
prosperous under free labor than she had ever been under slave 
labor. 

But at this point the old enemies, of the South came in. They 
did not want the South to prosper, They wanted to make the 
South tributary and subservient to them and their interests. What 
did they do to stop our prosperity ? They disfranchised the whites, 
they gave votes to the blacks ; they set up a military rule over 
Georgia to compel the whites to submit; they sent emissaries 
among you to tell you, that your old masters were your Avorst ene- 
mies ; that they (our enemies) were your best friends; that you 
must vote for them and with them. They formed you into Union 
Leagues, and swore you to maintain their cause ; they pretended 
that if you did not support them you would be again reduced to 
slavery ; that the Union and the flag were in danger, and you 
must support it. These and other things they did to .divide the 
whites and the blacks into two hostile parties ; that by dividing 
us they might conquer the South and her principles, and make you 
the tool of our undoing. You have seen the result ; Georgia is 
poor and impoverished, and you and we are all the sufferers. All 
this trouble has come by attempting to place the two races in a 
false position. 

Let me ask you to consider this question. Suppose you had a 
steamboat, a ship, or a steam mill, and knew nothing about run- 
ning either of them, would you persist in being the captain of 



COLORKD TKOPLK OF (tKO.K(jl'A, 



If 



the boat or the ship, when you knew not how to manage either? 
Would von not he likely to destroy what yon could not properly 
use? What sort of a figure would I, or any landsman, make in 
command of a ship at sea? Would not certain destruction over- 
take the ship and all on board? 

Yet this very tiling* our Northern enemies have done with Geor- 
gia. The management of the {State requires wise heads. These 
heads have to be chosen by enlightened people ; but our enemies 
said the white and enlightened people of Georgia shall not choose 
the officers of government, but the black people, who know noth- 
ing- a 1 tout the matter, shall choose them. 

( Georgia is our snip, in which are embarked the prosperity of 
whites and blacks. If she goes down we all go down. Do you 
wish, because you are a citizen of Georgia, to claim the right to 
command, though you know nothing of government ? Do you 
wish to control civilization, when you have not the necessary in- 
tellect ? You wish, or should wish to become civilized men, can 
you become so without the guidance of your white fellow citizens ? 
Our enemies, who put you in command of our ship, Georgia, in- 
tended by it to wreck you and us ; are you so silly as to play into 
their hands by accepting the command? 

In speaking of the North and the South, I wdsh you to remem- 
ber, I do not include every man in the North when I say "the 
North." By "the North" I mean, only that power, which has been 
warring against our rights as a State. There are many, (I hope a 
majority there), who side with us, but they are not in power now. 
And by "the South," I do not mean every man in the South. For 
there are many here, who are the enemies of the black people, 
who wonld misuse them, and who like Judas of old, would sell 
their principles, if they had any, for filthy lucre and place. But by 
the South, I mean the people in general, who have shown by their 
acts that they are friends to your true interests and that of Geor- 
gia. 

You have then to take your choice between the Northern and 
the Southern side of the question, between your own State and 
a foreign State, between your own interests and the interests of 
strangers, enemies of civilized freedom, choose between the North- 
ern and the Southern man. In making your choice, bear in mind 
who it Avas, that sold you into slavery to the South — the NORTH, 
who w^as it that after selling you, have been endeavouring for 
years to mal<e you cut the throats of the men they sold you to ? 
the NOETH ? Who make us pay two prices, (nay four prices) 
for all we put on our backs, or put in our mouths ? The NOETH ! 
Who prevented the black man from going into the Territories ? 
The NOETH ! Who refuse vou equal rights as citizens in their 
own States ? The NOETH ! " 

Who are arguing among themselves, whether you are a man or 
a brute beast, whether you have a soul or not ? The NOETH ! 

Who propose to send vou out of the country entirely ? The 
NOETH ! 



go 



AN ViMUIKSH TO THE 



Who We?e they, that when they invaded Georgia* tbok frotii yoii 
all the property you had accumulated under slavery, tied you up in 
many instances and whipped you, till you gave up the little gold 
and silver you had saved in slavery ? Who burnt up your bug- 
gies, stole your clothes, horses, mules, cows, and destroyed all they 
could not use, leaving you beggared and bare ? The Northern 

AEMT UNBEE GENERAL SHERMAN ! * 

It is the North, under the pretense of kindness to you, that 
gave you the right to vote, and sent its people down here to get 
elected by your votes, and took the power of self Government from 
the intelligent white people, wlio brought you up and raised you, 
that they might swell their members in congress and carry a revo- 
lution of constitutional liberty. 

It is the North that is trying to make a war of races in the 
South, that they may come in and wipe out both contestants. The 
Northern people, as a whole, have no use for black people ; they 
find white labor more profitable, and prefer it, and would not care 
how soon you were put out of the way. 

The Southern man, on the contrary, has been tolerant towards 
you. He took you a perfect barbarian from the hands of the 
Northern man soon after he brought you from Africa, and has 
done as good a part by you as circumstances permitted. He res- 
pects your freedom, and his only wish is to see you make good use 
of it. This he wishes not so much for his own sake as for your 
own. He can better do without you than you can without him. 
He is bound to hold fast to the civilization of his ancestors ; he 
will never yield to barbarism ; and if he finds you refuse to co-op- 
erate witn him, for your own advancement, he will have to aban- 
don you to self destruction. He wishes to see you educated, mor- 
al, religious and prosperous, because it is not only to his interest, 
but it is his pleasure also, for lie has a feeling of kindness to you, 
as to one born in his house. I have given you a short review of 
your present condition, and it is for you to take your choice be- 
tween the Northern and the Southern man. You must have a 
guide, whish will you take ? 



NUMBER VII. 

Who are They/, Who are Urging ox You a Departure from 
Your Liee-loxg Course, as Waiters ox Providexce ? 

I shall endeavor first to show you what I mean by being waiters 
on Providence. It is common with you, no matter what happens, 



NOTE. — Perhaps our Northern friends will be astonished to learn, that many— very 
many of the Southern slaves, had as tine clothes as their masters, purchased by their pri- 
vate earnings— that they had busies, horses, cattle, hogs &c, all held in their own right, 
by the toleration of their '■'■cruel, bloodthirsty slave driving masters." Yet this is a tact, 
and it is also a fact, that these poor creatures were despoiled of all they had, by the bum- 
mers in Shermans army. Many of them. were, as stated above, tied up and whipped till 
they gave up their specie. The author knows of many such instances in Liberty county. 



21 



to refer it nil to the will of Gtod« Sickness, lofts of goods or friends, 
and even death itself, are all mot with a passive endurance. A 
very short time obliterates your greatest troubles, and reconciles 
you to them. 

In short, so little are you disposed to murmur at events, and so 
small is your endeavor to change their course, that many regard 
you as void of sensibility. I am inclined to think it arises from 
an humble trust in Providence, and that not having an active un- 
derstanding and imagination, you do not attempt to shape your 
own destiny, but follow the leadings of circumstances, and make 
the best you can of what happens — much as young children do. 
Reason as white men may about it, this quality, if arrived at by 
the inductions of a Christian philosophy, would form the crown- 
ing point of a Christian regeneration. The Gospel tells us, that 
to become as a little child, is to be the greatest in the kingdom of 
heaven. You have naturally, what the Christian attains to, spirit- 
ually. 

Living as you have among the whites of America, often have 
you attended barbecues on Fourth of July celebrations. You have 
heard the speeches of red hot orators, lauding the bird of liberty 
as she winged her flight among the stars ; you have heard the De- 
claration of Independence, telling you "all men are equal ;" you 
have helped celebrate that great birth day of American Independ- 
ence, by firing off guns and crackers. Nevertheless, it never en- 
tered your mind to claim that freedom you heard so much lauded. 
During the revolutionary war the British tried to turn you against 
your masters, but you turned a deaf ear to their teachings, and re- 
mained faithful and firm. All through the late war you remained 
faithful, and apathetic to the proclamations of your freedom. 

The North, that had counted on your rebellion, in the midst of 
the opportimites you must necessarily have in the progress of the 
war, was astonished at your steadfast loyalty to your owners. Des- 
pairing of your rebellion, they had finally to offer you large boun- 
ties to get you into their armies. Though your nature was op- 
posed to a self assertion of freedom, and the taking up of arms to 
procure it, yet the large bounty carried you into the ranks, that 
fought against Dixie land. This shows that your childlike sub- 
mission, is not the result of principle, as it is in a Christian disci- 
ple, but is only natural to you, and and can be overcome by suf- 
ficient inducements. After emancipation, the same indifference 
was shown by you, and but for selfish men, Avho used you as their 
tool, you would have remained quiet and inoffensive. 

In the midst of all this natural apathy, however, the divine 
Providence shaped your course. By his providence you were 
brought to a Christian land, where of yourself you would never 
have come. By his providence, through the contentions of North 
and South, you have been freed. You waited on providence, and 
he made you freemen in a Christian land, with Christian oppor- 
tunities. You ha7e been waiters on providence, and have ad- 
vanced ; why not continue to wait instead of taking up arms to 
do, you know not what? Why are you drilling'Jby nights, why go 



AN AlHVRl-ss To THK 



armed on all occasions ? AVho is going to hurt you, that yoit 
should be meeting by roll of drums, and playing soldier. You 
must surely know, that such a course will lead to trouble. Are 
not the laws of the country as powerful for your protection as for 
the whites. Who of you, if wronged, would not have hosts 
of whites rush to your rescue, provided you remain the quiet 
waiters on providence, you have ever been. Can you hope to suc- 
ceed by by bullying and arming ? If you, by the advice of bad 
white men bring on a war of races, what must be your fate against 
the superior intelligence and numbers of the whites ? Can you 
hope to effect anything for yourselves, by claiming your rights, 
whatever they may be, by force. I do not mean, that you are 
not to defend your lives and property against violence, against the 
murderer and the robber. It is your duty, and the law allows you 
to do it, just as much as it allows it to a white man. 

It is your duty to earn your wages of labor, to secure it to your- 
selves, to use it in the promotion of your happiness, the education of 
your childien, and the support of your Churches. But seeing, that 
your race is not gifted with the capacity of advancing the interests 
of a civilized Government, it is not your duty to strive to take a 
place you cannot fill. 

The Gospel says, if we are bidden to a feast, we should take the 
lowermost seat, and the master of the house seeing our worthiness, 
will say to us, come up higher ; and then we shall have honor in 
the eyes of those who sit at meat with us. 

You know the whites are the masters of this house of Georgia ; 
they came here voluntarily, from a far distant country, in order to 
found it. They bought your fathers as slaves, who were brought 
against their will from their native land, to one entirely strange to 
them. They took them, perfect barbarians, and raised the present 
generation of you to your present condition. Xow, don't you 
think it is very overbearing in you, to wish to usurp the rule of 
this house ? You may say that strangers have come and told 
you to do so, but no matter by whose advice, it is still very outra- 
geous conduct, and you ought to be ashamed of it. I know if you 
think about it, you will be very sorry you have ever listened to 
such bad advice. You have a right to progress ; you have a right 
to education. If you have not sense enough to procure these 
things for yourselves, it is the duty and the interest of the whites to 
aid you. You cannot be left to die ont. by ignorance and immoral 
lives, without tainting the air of our civilization. If not from 
Christian duty, then from interest, we are bound to help you, if 
you will depend on us, and ask our aid ; but you will have to turn 
a deaf ear to strangers, and listen to us. 

If we do not our duty byyou ; then, will that Gospel be applied 
to us, which says : 

"For I was an hungered and you gave me no meat; I was 
thirsty, and ye gave me no drink ; I was a stranger, and you took 
me not in ; naked, and ye clothed me not ; sick, and in prison, and 
ye visited me not." 

Then shall they answer unto him, saying. Lord, when saw we : 



COLOBED PEOPLE OF GEORGIA. 



tlioo an hungered, or athirsr, or a stranger, or in prison, unci did 
not minister unto thee ? 

''Then shall lie answer them, saying-, " Verily, I say unto you, 
inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not 
to me." 

"And these shall go away into everlasting punishment." 

Such will be our fate as a people if we do not our duty by you, 
provided you ask us. If Christian teachings and a wise policy are 
not pursued towards you, we shall assuredly answer for it as a 
people. Depend upon it, however, that you will not awaken our 
consciences to the performance of this duty by arms and violence ; 
but, on the contrary, justify us in leaving you to the destruction 
that will soon overtake you as it did the Indians. 

Now, to answer the question, who are they who are urging on 
you a departure from your life-long course as waiters on Provi- 
dence ? and I will also ask, what do they want with you ? 

Now, my friends, though you cannot think abstractly, you have 
still common sense enough to understand what is plainly stated. 

The Northern people, who are setting you on, have no love for 
you ; nor do they think you have any right to possess what they 
wish you to claim, and to fight for here. In their own country 
they do not give you the right to vote nor hold office. If it is pro- 
per for you to have it here, why not there ? It cannot be right 
in Georgia, but wrong in the Northern States. You see at once 
they are deciving you, as to what they are really driving at, and 
they are trifling with your ignorance, 

Not only does the North deny you equal civil rights, but on re- 
cent occasions, they would not allow the Grant and Colfax colored 
clubs, to walk in their processions. The people would not tolerate 
your presence, and would have mobbed you had you been seen in 
their processions. 

What then do they mean by exciting you to violence here, to ob- 
tain among us, what they deny to you at the North ? 

I will state it in a few words. There are two branches forming 
the Radical party. The Abolitionists and the Radicals proper. 
The Abolitionists, mean well towards you, and are in earnest in 
their views of elevating you to an equality with the whites ; but 
they are fanatics, and are endeavouring to perform impossibilities. 
Ihey say — one God made us all, and there should.be no difference. 
This sounds well, but remember cne God made the ox, the camel, 
the horse, the bat, the eagle, but he did not make the ox to pull with 
the horse, nor the bat to see like the eagle. So he has made va- 
rious orders of men, among others the whites and the blacks, but 
he has not given them the same qualities. The whites have their 
peculiar genius, and you have your's. These are as different as is 
difference among the animal and brute creations, and you cannot 
alter them. To the whites he has given intellect of a high order, 
and all its progressive results, to you he has given an obedient ear, 
an humble will, and a servile disposition. Which is the best gift, 
we need not argue, enough that they are as different as are the 
color of your skins, each has its allotted sphere of action. Whilst 



24 



AN ADDRESS TO THE 



the whites sec for you, and advance civil Government, and moral 
and religious truth, you hear with an obedient ear and advance by 
hearing. The white man is made by God to lead, and you are 
made by God to hear and follow. 

This is clearly proved by the fact, that the Abolitionists come here 
among you, to tell you what to do, for you know not of yourselves. 
The only question for you to determine, is will you hear the men 
you live among, who know you, and can lead you right, or will you 
hear those, who start by telling you of an equality, which does not 
exist, and which inequality is admitted by the fact, that they have 
to instruct you what to do. 

The [Radical party are a different order of men ; they are called 
Radical, I suppose, because they wish to tear up the tree of liberty 
by the ROOTS. Their object is to destroy the Union of States, 
and make one great central power upheld by the military. In this 
attempt they expect a civil war at the North, and they are endeav- 
oring to separate you from the whites, arming and drilling you, to 
light against the whites of the North, as well as of the South. 

They want you as food for gunpowder, to uphold their usurpa- 
tions. After the battle, should they succeed, they will have no 
further use for you, but will drive you out of the country or leave 
you to rot. They will treat you as the carpet baggers have done, 
tolerate you only so long as they can use you to their own advan- 
tage. 

We have arrived, in this our day, to the crisis of the great con- 
test, inaugurated at the dawn of American Independence. From- 
that day until now there has been a war between money and hu- 
man rights ; between a government, to be administered for the 
take of wealth and material prosperity, and one to be administered 
for human rights and liberty. New England is, and has been the 
centre of the movement in favor of the rights of money, and the 
Southern States have been arrayed against them. 

The tariff has been the fruitful source by which the money 
power has been recruited. The late war has been still more fruit- 
ful. The national debt is, by this poAver, considered a national 
blessing, because it strengthens the ranks of the wealthy, and 
weakens those of the workman and laborer. These wealthy 
classes sigh for the death of Democracy and Republicanism, which 
mode of government they consider a failure, as they say the people 
are not fit to govern themselves, neither as whites nor blacks. 

This fight, you, who are yourselves workingmen and laborers, 
are expected to enter into, on the side of the rich and wealthy, 
and against the white workingmen and laborers of the North. 

The cry they raise, and the pretence they make of wishing you 
to vote, and have equal rights with the whites, are made, at the 
very time they are preparing to take these rights from whites and 
blacks. Their pretended advocacy of your rights is a mere fraud 
on you ; they are deceiving you to lure you to war and death. You 
are common inheritors Avith us, of all the good that flows from a 
government administered in the interests of human rights, and it 
will be committing suicide for you to aid the Radical party. 



COLORED PEOPLE OF GEOKGIA. 



25 



The whole money world here, and in Europe, are linked together 
by an invisible ehain of sympathy, all breathing death to the child 
of seventy-six. The world, the flesh and the devil arc warring 
against the great principles of our American founders. They de- 
sire to have their wealth and its interests considered primarily, and 
human rights secondarily. They want a splendid Government, to 
pamper pride, and rule the workinginen and laborers, reducing 
them to the lowest modicum of unremunerated labor ; and when 
thus reduced, that they may establish poor houses, hospitals, and 
other eleemosynary institutions, much in the same manner as the 
nobility build magnificent stables and kennels for their horses and 
dogs, because they are adjuncts of their state and quality as nobles. 
Pride of wealth, luxury, a moneyed aristocracy, (the most nauseous 
aristocracy of all) ostentatious charities to those, who are poor 
(only because they are wronged), will take the place of the glorious 
and heaven born spirit of our institutions. If we are to prefer the 
civilization of Europe, based on money making and its rule, to a 
civilization based on human rights and human progress, (in which 
MAN and not a dollar shall be the integer of value,) then we 
should support the Radical party. But if we are to prefer God, 
humanity, and equal rights before the law, (which is the only 
equality meant in the Declaration of Independence) then, let us 
join hands and defeat Radicalism. 

My friends you have this equality before the law, and you will 
be always taken and advanced, according to your merits. Prove 
yourselves equal or superior to your white brethren, and depend 
upon it under our form of Government you will be advanced to 
station and honor. Till you do that, it would be against the in- 
terests of ourselves, and yourselves, against God's will and the 
rights of civilization for you to be placed in positions that would 
injure those interests. It is not because you have the forms of men, 
that you are therefore men as to mental or moral attributes, and 
these last are they, that must determine your place among us. 



- NUMBER VIII. 

The Dangers You aim-: in, by Attempting to Mould Your Future 
by Force, Instead oe Moving on as Heretofore, Under Obe- 
dience and Tutelage to those, Who are the Pioneers in, and 
Active Agents ov Civilization. 

Before entering on this subject, I will say a few words about 
the parties, who are most active in arraying you against Southern 
white men, and your former friends. 

First. — There are the old Abolititionists. They have always 
been preaching that you have been badly treated. That the white 
people here should have done, thus and so. Well now, I will tell 
you how to try those fault finders — more busy in attending to 
other, and more distant people, than to those they have about 
d 



26 



AN ADDRESS TO THE 



them. Take for instance, one of the most estimable of this class, 
the philanthropic quaker, and say to him. 

"Friend ! thee has always been saying*, that we have been badly 
treated, that the South has not done a fair part by us — now friend, 
we are free to come and go where we please (being now free) and 
we will come to thee, and thee can show us how thee thinks we 
should be brought up. A thousand families of us will come to 
thy neighbourhood, and each friend may take one family of us, 
and do by us as we ought to be done by.'' The reply would be. 
''Friend, thee need not come, we have no need of thee, and have as 
much as we can do to take care of number one." 

You might then reply, "since thee will not, or cannot help us, 
why make trouble between, us and those we are bound to, as our 
employers and neighbours. Iu the language of the Gospel thee 
art like the Pharisees of old. "For they bind heavy burdens and 
grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders, but they 
themselves will not move them with one of their ringers." 

Next we will take the Radical, but he, good honest fellow, does 
not make much pretense to philanthropy, his instrument is a small 
triangular piece of steel, called a bayonet, with which he pierces 
to his object* He puts you in front of the battle, and tells you to 
do and die ! I have already adverted to their objects, but I will 
state them again in a few words. They are ail for self and use 
you as stepping stones to power. The piles of yonr dead bodies 
are to serve as ramparts, behind which they will light their way to 
dominion over a Democratic Republic. 

No people can long maintain the principles of a Democratic 
Government, who are burthened with so large a public debt as we 
have. Added to the bondholding interest, is that of the Wealthy 
manufacturers and bankers. These holders of immense wealth 
will seek power, they will oppress the workingman, they will seek 
to displace the liberty of the individual man, by giving life to a 
stronger Government that shall insure power and safety to capital. 
In other words an aristocacy of wealth can never be safe, so long- 
as the fluctuating popular will, is left free to jeopardize its exis- 
tence. A contest sooner or later may be expected, and you are 
expected to fight nominally for republicanism, but truly to support 
this aristocracy in its usurpations. This war will be at the North, 
and you who are workingmen, if you fight on the side of this aris- 
tocracy, will be warring against your own interests, and 
against laborers like yourselves. TVe trust such a contest may 
never come, but if it should, you had better keep out of it, and 
live peaceably at home on your farms. Should you fight on their 
side and win. what will be your reward. When the battle has 
been lost and won, and thousands of you have been made food for 
gunpowder, and you ask for your reward, the aristocracy will 
open a fresh bottle of champagne, light a fresh cigar, and tell you 
to go to Africa, or elsewhere, but not to stand between the 
"wind and their nobility." A few of you may indeed be retained, 
dressed in a masquerade, called a livery, to adorn the state of a 
vain moneyed aristocracy, and show your contempt of the down 
trodden poor, 



COLORED PEOPLE OP GEORGIA. 2T 

lUit if the battle should be lost to them, what then? you will 
have made enemies so implacable, as not to be satisfied short of 
your extermination. Is it mercifiul in the Radicals, to place you 
in this cross lire of tin 1 two contending- parties. What have you 
to do with the contentions of the two parties in the fight, Better 
stay at home, and mind your own business, by keeping out of 
partisan politics and warfare, of which you know nothing. 

Another class of persons against whom you should be warned, 
is that class of colored men, who come here from the North, in 
the pay and under the miguiding influences of the Radical party. 
They preach riot and bloodshed, take your money, get into offices, 
which they are unable to fill with any propriety or fitness, and at 
last after getting you into trouble, leave you and go home with 
well filled pockets. What will you get by listening to, and acting 
under their guidance ? Nothing but war ! war ! war ! till you are 
ruined and starved by idle habits contracted in attending meetings, 
and political clubs. 

Happy had it been, had you never been gifted with the bal- 
lot. It has been a snare and delusion, turning you from settled 
labor, and leading you to idleness, vagrancy and drunkenness. 
It was like putting in the hands of an infant, a sharp edged tool, 
by which he was sure to wound himself. The nation having 
brought you from Africa, stands morally and equitably bound to 
act by you the part of the good Samaritan ; but the politictans are 
not the Samaritans . Instead of oil, they pour vitriol into your 
gaping wounds. AVhen emancipation took place, they should 
have substituted some other governing power, in place of that of 
your masters — a power at once educational and coercive, as that -of 
a schoolmaster over his scholars. 

In each county might have been located a model farm, on which 
laborers may have worked at fair wages, subject to proper super- 
vision over their domestic economy, and cleanly habits of living 
and clothing. On each farm might have been established a school, 
capable of taking in children from a wide circuit of country. These 
farms would have been self sustaining, leaving perhaps some pro- 
fits on the investment. 

The system, the hours of labor, the discipline, the wages given, 
would each have, measurably, been the rule and the practise 
throughout that county. Thus the light shed from this centre, 
would have reached the whole confines of the county. If it was 
thought, that justice would not be done you by the State Courts, 
inferior federal Courts, with powers of justices of the peace might 
have been established, to try all cases in which a colored person 
was concerned, with the right of appeal to higher courts. 

Such indeed was the plan I recommended, in a letter to General 
Tilson, long before the passage of the reconstruction acts. The 
wise men of Congress, however, thought that your true defense 
lay in your having the ballot. 

But the ballot is no defense in the hands of ignorance. You 
know many poor ignorant white men, who have been voting for 
years. Did you ever know it of any special benefit or protection 



2s 



AN ADDRESS TO THE 



to them ? How has it benefitted them or the country ? Their 
votes were given without intelligence, and at the instigation of 
others. This great privilege, this act of sovereignty, should only 
be given to the intelligent. Suffrage has made you the prey o*f 
ignorant demagogues, and the tools, aud the scoff of both parties. 

If, however, you must vote, it appears to me, that your best 
course would be to abstain from identifying yourselves with either 
political party. Have nothing to do with national politics, but 
confine yourselves to voting only for State officers, and of these 
choose those in whom you have most confidence, as just, and wise 
intelligent men. 

Put aside your guns and pistols, quit drilling, realize the fact 
that your progress depends on the people among whom you are. 
and say thus to them in word and spirit. 

"You brought our lathers from their native land against their 
will. For these two hundred years, they and we, (their off-spring,) 
have been faithful servants to you and your fathers. We have 
nursed you in infancy, and been more tender in our care of and af- 
fection for you, than we have been to our own children. We have 
in childhood followed you, and partaken of your sports. We have 
followed your fortunes, whether good or bad, sharing either the 
luxury or the poverty of the masters we served, always cheerful 
under the worst reverses of fortune, and identifying your in- 
terests with our own. We have obeyed you, served you, sympa- 
thized with you in your griefs and joys — our labor is seen on all 
sides, which under your superior intelligence has reared cities, and 
whitened the seas of commerce with ships, freighted with the 
staples of our land. By our labor, the world has been clothed, by 
it also the North has grown rich, proud, imperious. During the 
late war, though appealed to by your enemies (when near enough 
to receive and protect us against you) we remained faithful to our 
life long attachments to you — After the war, we still cast linger- 
ing looks towards you, and were ready to continue the attachment 
as freemen, which we had for you as slaves, and were only pre- 
vented because you closed your arms and hearts against our em- 
brace, and felt angry at us for the act of emancipation, that was 
forced upon us, without our having raised our voices to ask it. 

"In this intervel of your unjust anger, strangers came among us 
and sowed tares, and for this you blame us, though you took no 
pains to instruct us in the duties of our new situation ; and to this 
day you have made no movement to do so with effect — saying by 
you action, "we care not what becomes of you." We came not to 
your country by our own volition — we were not emancipated by 
our own effort — faithful to you throughout, have we not a claim on 
your sympathy, kindness, and care. Let us continue to act in each 
other's interests. You have knowledge, we have skilled labor — - 
let us make Georgia to blossom as the rose. 

"All this you may do, if you will interest yourselves in our wel- 
fare — We are willing to be instructed, if you will put forth your 
hand. You send missionaries to distant lands, and behold ! you 
have us at your doors, needing Christian benevolence. 'We ap- 



tJOLORED PEOPLE OP GEORGIA. 



2§ 



piMil to the Churches, for the love of ;i God of mercy, to have 
mercy on us, and let us not perish in their midst by being led as- 
tray by mi of blood. 

"We ask not to be taught the dogmas of religions faith, boeause 
n\ 1- cannot comprehend them, nor do you, but we wish to be taught 
what evil is, and what good is. Wo will trust, that as our lives 
are amended, we shall be gifted with a true living faith. Eman- 
cipation has not changed our natures, the same tractable disposi- 
tion that made us faithful slaves, is still ours, to enable us to be 
teachable freemen. 

"Try, and sec how easy the work is, if we but feel you are in 
earnest in our behalf. We admit many of our people are not en- 
titled to your confidence, but why distrust the innocent, on account 
of the guilty. The laws against crime will take care of them, do 
you take care of us, who are not criminal."*" 

Would not such an appeal and such a spirit, be more in ac- 
cordance with yoar true nature and wants, than the vain effort to 
fly without wings. Such an appeal, would bring all good men to 
your aid. The wise, and the greatest of our people, the leaders of 
public opinion, would listen to you, and soon, efforts would be 
made, societies would be formed, and all the machinery of organ- 
ized effort be put in motion, to take you by the hand and direct you 
in the channels of usefulness, and thus you will continue in the 
future, as in the past, one of the agents of civilization. Civiliza- 
tion has a very selfish heart. It is not in the power of Congress, 
or any earthly power to make civilization accept any, but a useful 
member of society. Let us be one people, and if unhappily the 
workingmen of the North, goaded to desperation by the burthen of 
taxation ; or the lovers of constitutional liberty rise in their might 
against usurpation and wrong, and thus a civil war arise, we shall 
here in Georgia have a harbor of safety, for those to fly to, who 
wish to escape the violence of the storm. It is not impossible that 
such maybe the case, though we hope our fears may be groundless. 



NUMBER IX. 

In conclusion my colored friends — I have been at much pains to 
write this address, in order to give you a view of your situation 
past and present, in hopes that I may influence your future for 
good. Please to read and ponder what I have written. Some of 
you can read, and it will be your duty to read the address, portion 
by portion, to your less fortunate brothers. Weigh well what is 
written, and be careful to think for youselves, do not allow the 
enemy to influence you, but receive what I have said, as coming 
from one, who is a true friend. 



* NOTE— I assure the reader, that many of the sentiments of this address, arc those of 
an intelligent black man, who is minding'his own business, and prospering wonderfully. 
1 withhold his name at his request. E. Y, 



AN AfcDKESS TO THE 



"We are all creatures of one good Being. We are all brethren, 
children of one Eather. He has made us differently — we, to work 
in one part of his vine yard — you, in another. But all to receive 
the wages of our work. This world is but of short duraton, let 
us each so act his part, that when we appear before him, he may 
say to each of us — "Well done good and faithful servant." 

You have good qualities, so peculiar to you, so different from 
those of the white race, that many intelligent minds argue, that 
you are an independent race, created before that of the whites. If 
so, your ancestors in their golden age, (which all nations have) 
must have had a civilization peculiar to their genius, which through 
sin and the lapse of long ages, is now lost ; leaving you as we find 
you, bereft of all but the remains of the inmost characteristics of 
your order. 

Your native land of Africa is the most interesting in the world, 
which with its inhabitants, presents to the eager thinker an enigma 
to be solved. 

You are now in a Christian land, the foremost in civilization, 
because it was here in America, that the great system of Govern- 
ment was born, in which, by checks and balances, the sovereignty 
of the people might be secured. Great thing are in store for this 
favored land, where mind is so active and man so free to act. We 
may have trials, conflicts — but they will all tend to the advance of 
truth and a liberty regulated by law. 

Do your duty cjuietly in your sphere, i raiting for the providen- 
ces, that will unfold your future. Lift not up your hand in your 
own might, it will but mar the work. As we advance, you will 
advance, the one depends on the other. 

It may be, that on you will devolve the glorious task of coloni- 
zing and filling Africa, with the ornaments of gold and silver, you 
will carry awaj T from America (in the shape of knowledges of what 
is good and true), which you may obtain among us. 

What we have done in America, you may do in Africa, one of 
the most bounteous, fruitful, and beautiful countries on our globe, 
rich in every thing that man needs for the supply of his natural 
wants. There — you may plant a civilization based on the affection 
for the right, the counterpart of that we have here introduced, 
based on the under standing of the right. Which will be the best, 
or the nearest to the Lord, time alone can tell. It may be that 
Africa will, in future agos, demonstrate to those, whose eagle sight 
has pierced the light of truth, and pioneered her people to civiliza- 
tion — that a civilization founded on the affect ion for what is good 
and true, is superior to that founded on the 'understanding. That 
the hearing car, is superior to the seeing eye. 

With this hint at your possible future, and a reminder, of what 
you should cherish as the dearest object of your laudable ambition, 
(the civilization of your native land of Africa). I conclude ; and 
bid you farewell ! 



A P P E N !M X 



As bearing on the subject treated on in this address, I give be- 
low an extract from "The Albert Nyanza," of the English traveller 
in Africa, Sir S. W. Baker, in which he gives his views of the 
workings of emancipation in the British West Indies, and his 
experiences in Africa. 

"The black man is a curious anomaly, the good and the bad 
points of human nature bursting forth without any arrangement, 
like the flowers and thorns of his own wilderness. A creature of 
impulse, seldom actuated by reflection, the black astonishes by his 
complete obtuseness, and as suddenly confounds you by an unex- 
pected exhibition of sympathy. From a long experience with 
African savages, T think it is as absurd to condemn the negro in 
totOj as it is preposterous to compare his intellectual capacity with 
that of the white man. It is unfortunately the fashion for one 
party to uphold the negro as a superior being, while the other de- 
nies him the common powers of reason. So great a difference of 
opinion has ever existed upon the intrinsic value of the negro, that 
the very perplexity of the question is a proof that he is altogether 
a distinct variety. 80 long as it is generally considered that the 
negro and the white man are to be governed by the same laws and 
guided by the same management, so long will the former remain a 
thorn in the side of every community to which he may unhappily 
belong. When the horse aud the ass shall be found to match in 
double harness, the white man and the African black will pull to- 
gether under the same regime. It is the gr md error of equalizing 
that which is unequal, that has lowered the negro character, and 
made the black man a reproach. 

*Tn childhood I believe the negro to be in a Ivance, in intellec- 
tual quickness, of the white child of a similar age, but the mind 
does not expand — it promises fruit, but does not ripen ; and the 
negro man has grown in body, but has not advanced in intellect. 
The puppy of three months old is superior in intellect to a white 
child of the same age, but the mind of the child expands, while 
that of the dog has arrived at its limit." "The African Avill re- 
main a negro in all his natural instincts ; although transplanted to 
other soils ; and those natural instincts being a love of idleness and 
savagedom, he will assuredly relapse into an idle and savage State, 
unless specially governed and forced to industry. 

kt The history of the negro has proved the correctness of this 
theory. In no instance has he evinced other than retrogression, 
when once freed from restraint. Like ahorse without harness, he 
runs wild, but, if harnessed, no animal is more useful. Unfortu- 
nately, this is contrary to public opinion in England, where the 
voxpopuli assumes the right of dictation upon matters and men in 
which it has had no experience. The English insist upon their 
own weights and measures as the scales for human excellence, and 
it has been decreed by the multitude, inexperienced in the negro 
personally, that he has been a badly treated brother ; that he is a 



32 



APPENDIX. 



worthy member of the human family, placed in an inferior posi- 
tion through the prejudice and ignorance of the white man, with 
whom he should be on an equality. 

The negro has been, and still is thoroughly misunderstood. How- 
ever, severely we may condemn the horrible system of slavery, the 
results of emancipation have proved that the negro does not appre- 
ciate the blessings of freedom, nor does he show the slightest feel- 
ing of gratitude to the hand that broke the rivets of his fetters. 
His narrow mind, cannot embrace that feeling of pure philanthro- 
py that first prompted England, to declare herself against slavery, 
and he only regards the antislavery movement as a proof of his 
own importance. In his limited horizon he is himself — the impor- 
tant object, and as a sequence to his self conceit, he imagines that 
the whole world is at issue eercerning the BLACK MAN. The 
negro therefore,, being the important question, must be an impor- 
tant person, and he conducts himself accordingly — he is far too 
great a man to work. Upon this point his natural character ex- 
hibits itself most determinedly. Accordingly, he resists any at- 
tempt at co-ercion ; being free, his first impulse is to claim an 
equality with those whom he lately served, and to usurp a dignity 
with absurd pretensions, that must inevitably insure the disgust of 
the white community. Ill will thus engendered, a hatred and 
jealousy is established between the two races, combined with the 
errors that in such conditions must arise on both sides. The final 
question remains. Why was the negro first introduced into our 
colonies ?" 

"Now as the negro was originally imported as a laborer, but 
new refuses to labor, it is self evident that he is a lamentable fail- 
ure. Either he must be compelled to work by some stringent law 
against vagrancy, or those beautiful countries that prospered un- 
der the conditions of forced labor and industry must yield to ruin, 
under negro freedom and idle independence. For an exam pie of 
the results, look at St. Domingo ! 

''Under peculiar guidance, and .subject to a certain restraint, 
the negro may be an important and most useful being ; I»ut if 
treated as an Englishman, he will affect the vices but none of the 
virtues of civilization, and his natural good qualities will be lost 
in his attempt to become a ■'white man." 

"It was amusing to watch the change that took place in a slave 
that had been civilized ? by the slave traders. Among their par- 
ties, there were many blacks who had been captured, and who en- 
joy the life of slave hunting — nothing appeared so easy as to be- 
come professional in kidnapping human beings, and the first act of 
a slave was to procure a dare for himself. All the best slave hun- 
ters, and the boldest and most energetic scoundrels were the ne- 
groes who had at one time themselves been kidnapped. "Pages 
194, 195, 198." 



[Entered according to Act of Congress in 1S0S. by Elias Yulee, in the Clerk's ollicc ol the 
United States for the Southern District of Georgia.] 



L3Ag'l2 



